Richard Montanari: Four Novels of Suspense (59 page)

“What do you mean?”

“You live only half a block from a Blockbuster.”

Adam shrugged. “I guess it’s because they have more foreign and independent films than the big chains.”

“You like foreign films, Adam?” Jessica’s tone was friendly, conversational. Adam brightened slightly.

“Yeah.”

“I like
Cinema Paradiso
a lot,” Jessica said. “One of my favorite movies of all times. Ever see that one?”

“Sure,” Adam said. Even brighter, now. “Giuseppe Tornatore is great. Maybe even the heir apparent to Fellini.”

Adam was beginning to relax somewhat. He had been twisting that piece of cardboard into a tight spiral, which he now put down. It looked stiff enough to be a swizzle stick. Jessica sat in the battered metal chair opposite him. Just two people talking, now. Talking about a vicious homicide someone had videotaped.

“Did you watch this alone?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah.” There was a morsel of melancholy in his answer, as if he had recently broken off a relationship and was accustomed to watching videos with a partner.

“When did you watch it?”

Adam picked up the cardboard swizzle stick again. “Well, I get off work at my second job at midnight, I get home around twelve thirty. I usually take a shower and eat something. I guess I started it around one or one thirty. Maybe two.”

“Did you watch it straight through?”

“No,” Adam said. “I watched up until Janet Leigh gets to the motel.”

“Then what?”

“Then I shut it off and went to bed. I watched … the rest this morning. Before I left for school. Or, before I was
going
to leave for school. When I saw the … you know, I called the cops. Police. I called the
police.
”

“Did anyone else see this?”

Adam shook his head.

“Did you tell anybody about it?”

“No.”

“Was this tape in your possession the whole time?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“From the time you rented it until the time you called the police, did you have possession of the tape?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t leave it in your car for a while, leave it with a friend, leave it in a backpack or a book bag that you hung on a coatrack somewhere public?”

“No,” Adam said. “Nothing like that. I rented it, took it home, and put it on top of the TV.”

“And you live alone.”

Another grimace. He
had
just broken up with someone. “Yes.”

“Was anyone in your apartment when you were at work yesterday evening?”

“I don’t think so,” Adam said. “No. I really doubt it.”

“No one else has a key?”

“Just the landlord. And I’ve been trying to get him to fix my shower for, like, a year. I doubt he would come around without me being there.”

Jessica made a few notes. “Have you ever rented this movie from The Reel Deal before?”

Adam looked at the floor for a few moments, thinking. “The movie or this particular tape?”

“Either.”

“I think I rented the DVD of
Psycho
from them last year.”

“Why did you rent the VHS version this time?”

“My DVD player is broken. I have an optical drive in my laptop, but I don’t really like watching movies on a computer. The sound kind of sucks.”

“Where was this tape in the store when you rented it?”

“Where
was
it?”

“I mean, do they display the tapes on racks there, or do they just have empty boxes on the racks and keep the tapes behind the counter?”

“No, they have actual tapes on display.”

“Where was this tape?”

“There’s a section called Classics. It was in there.”

“Are they displayed alphabetically?”

“I think so.”

“Do you recall if this movie was right where it was supposed to be on the rack?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you rent anything else along with this?”

Adam drained of what little color remained in his face, as if the idea, the very notion, that other tapes might contain something this horrible was a possibility. “No. That was the only one.”

“Do you know any of the other customers there?”

“Not really.”

“Do you know anyone else who may have rented this tape?”

“No,” he said.

“Here’s a tough one,” Jessica said. “Are you ready?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you recognize the young woman on the tape?”

Adam swallowed hard, shook his head. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Jessica said. “We’re just about done for now. You’re doing great.”

This dislodged a crooked half smile from the young man. The fact that he was going to leave soon—the fact that he was going to leave at
all
—seemed to lift a heavy yoke from his shoulders. Jessica made a few more notes, glanced at her watch.

Adam asked: “Can I ask
you
something?”

“Sure.”

“Is that part, like,
real
?”

“We’re not certain.”

Adam nodded. Jessica held his gaze, looking for the slightest sign that he might be hiding something. All she found was a young man who stumbled onto something bizarre and, probably, terrifyingly real. Talk about your horror movie.

“Okay, Mr. Kaslov,” she said. “We appreciate you bringing this in. We’ll be in touch.”

“Okay,” Adam said. “Are we done?”

“Yes. And we’d appreciate it if you didn’t discuss this with anyone for the time being.”

“I won’t.”

They stood, shook hands. Adam Kaslov’s hand was ice.

“One of the officers will walk you down,” Jessica added.

“Thanks,” he said.

As the young man walked out into the duty room of the Homicide Unit, Jessica glanced at the two-way mirror. Although she couldn’t see through it, she didn’t have to read Kevin Byrne’s face to know they were in total agreement. Chances were good that Adam Kaslov had nothing to do with the crime committed on the tape.

If, in fact, a crime had actually been committed.

B
YRNE TOLD
J
ESSICA
he would meet her in the parking lot. When he found himself relatively alone and unobserved in the duty room, he sat at one of the computers, ran a check on Julian Matisse. As expected, there was nothing current. There had been a break-in at Matisse’s mother’s house a year earlier, but nothing involving Julian. Matisse had been in prison for the past two years. His list of known associates was outdated as well. Byrne printed off the addresses anyway, tore the sheet from the printer.

Then, although he may have been screwing up another detective’s work, he dumped the computer’s cache and erased the PCIC history for the day.

O
N THE GROUND
floor of the Roundhouse, in the back, was a lunchroom with a dozen or so battered booths, a dozen tables. The food was passable, the coffee was forty-weight. A bank of vending machines held down one wall. Large windows with an unobstructed view of the air-conditioning units held down the other.

As Jessica grabbed a pair of coffees for her and Byrne, Terry Cahill walked into the room, approached her. The handful of uniformed cops and detectives scattered around the room gave him the casual, appraising eye. He really did have
fed
written all over him, right down to his highly polished yet sensible cordovan oxfords. Jessica would bet that he ironed his socks.

“Got a second, Detective?”

“Just,” Jessica said. She and Byrne were on their way to the video store where the
Psycho
tape had been rented.

“I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be riding with you this morning. I’ll run what we have through VICAP and the other federal databases. See if we get a hit.”

We’ll try to get by without you,
Jessica thought. “That would be very helpful,” she said, suddenly aware how patronizing she sounded. Like herself, this guy was just doing his job. Luckily, it appeared as if Cahill hadn’t noticed.

“Not a problem,” he replied. “I’ll try to hook up with you in the field as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

“Great to be working with you,” he said.

“You, too,” Jessica lied.

She capped the coffees and made her way to the door. At the door she caught her reflection in the glass, then looked beyond, racking her focus, at the room behind her. Special Agent Terry Cahill was leaning against the counter, smiling.

Is he checking me out?

8

T
HE
R
EEL
D
EAL
was a small, independent video store on Aramingo Avenue near Clearfield, shoehorned between a Vietnamese takeout and a nail salon called Claws and Effect. It was one of the few mom-and-pop video stores in Philadelphia not yet put out of business by Blockbuster or West Coast Video.

The grimy front window held posters of Vin Diesel and Jet Li movies, cascaded over a decade of teen romantic comedies. There were also sun-leached black-and-white head shots of fading action stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan. One corner of the window bore a sign proclaiming
WE CARRY CULT AND MEXI-MONSTERS!

Jessica and Byrne entered.

The Reel Deal was a long, narrow space, with videotapes lining both walls and a two-sided rack down the center. The racks had handmade signs above them, plaques denoting genre:
DRAMA, COMEDY, ACTION, FOREIGN, FAMILY.
Something called
ANIME
took up a third of one wall. A glance at the
CLASSICS
rack showed a full range of Hitchcock movies.

In addition to the movies for rent were racks of microwave popcorn, soft drinks, chips, film magazines. On the walls above the tapes were curling movie posters, mostly action and horror titles, with a few Merchant-Ivory one-sheets sprinkled in for class.

To the right, next to the entrance, was the slightly elevated checkout counter. The movie running on the monitor mounted on the wall was a 1970s slasher flick Jessica didn’t immediately recognize. The requisite scantily clad coed was being chased through a dark basement by a knife-wielding, mask-wearing psychopath.

The clerk behind the counter was in his late teens. He had long dirty-blond hair, kneehole jeans, a Wilco T-shirt, a spike wristband. Jessica couldn’t tell which iteration of grunge he was emulating: the original Neil Young version, the Nirvana/Pearl Jam nexus, or some new breed of which she, at the ancient age of thirty, was not familiar.

There were a handful of browsers in the store. Beneath the cloying smell of strawberry incense was the faint aroma of some pretty good pot.

Byrne showed the clerk his badge.

“Whoa,” the kid said. His bloodshot eyes darted to the beaded doorway behind him and to what was, Jessica was fairly certain, his small stash of weed.

“What’s your name?” Byrne asked.

“My
name
?”

“Yeah,” Byrne said. “That’s the thing other people call you when they want to get your attention.”

“Uh, Leonard,” he said. “Leonard Puskas. Lenny, actually.”

“Are you the manager, Lenny?” Byrne asked.

“Well not, like, officially.”

“Meaning, like, what?”

“Meaning I open and close and do all the ordering and all the other work around here. All for minimum wage.”

Byrne held up the outer box for the copy of
Psycho
that Adam Kaslov had rented. The Audio Visual Unit still had the original tape.

“Hitch,” Lenny said, nodding. “A classic.”

“You’re a fan?”

“Oh yeah. Big time,” Lenny said. “Although, I never really got into his political stuff in the sixties.
Topaz, Torn Curtain.
”

“I see.”

“But
The Birds
?
North by Northwest
?
Rear Window
? Awesome.”

“What about
Psycho,
Lenny?” Byrne asked. “Are you a fan of
Psycho
?”

Lenny sat up straight, wrapped his arms around his chest, straitjacket style. He sucked in his cheeks, clearly getting ready to do some sort of impression. He said: “I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Jessica exchanged a glance and a shrug with Byrne. “And who was that supposed to be?” Byrne asked.

Lenny looked crushed. “That was Anthony Perkins. That’s his line from the end of the movie. He doesn’t actually say it, of course. It’s a voice-over. Actually, technically, the voice-over says
Why,
she
wouldn’t even hurt a fly,
but—” Lenny’s look of hurt instantly morphed into one of horror. “You’ve
seen
it, haven’t you? I mean … I didn’t … I’m a
real
stickler on spoilers.”

“I’ve seen the movie,” Byrne said. “I’ve just never seen anyone do Anthony Perkins before.”

“I can do Martin Balsam, too. Wanna see?”

“Maybe later.”

“Okay.”

“This tape is from this store?”

Lenny squinted at the label on the side of the box. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s ours.”

“We need to know the rental history of this particular tape.”

“No prob,” he said in his best Junior G-Man voice. This was going to be a great story around the bong later. He reached under the counter and took out a thick spiral notebook, began to turn over pages.

As he flipped through the book, Jessica noted that the pages were stained with just about every condiment known to man, and a few blots of unknown origin she didn’t even want to think about.

“Your records aren’t computerized?” Byrne asked.

“Uh, that would require software,” Lenny said. “And
that
would require an actual expenditure.”

It was clear that there was no love lost between Lenny and his boss.

“It’s only been out three times this year,” Lenny finally said. “Including the rental yesterday.”

“To three different people?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah.”

“Do your records go back farther?”

“Yeah,” Lenny said. “But we had to replace
Psycho
last year. The old tape broke, I think. That copy you have there has only been out three times.”

“Doesn’t seem like a lot of rentals for a classic,” Byrne said.